Bald Move Pulp

HBO's The Deuce moves out the LaLa land in the latest episode, "Seven-Fifty". The title reminds us that even people that we think of as "good" are capable of terrible exploitation in this world, a reminder that Simon and Pecalanos like to give us every 10 minutes or so. Lori gets her time to shine without her pimp clouding her view, Eileen makes some slight headway towards securing the budget for...

Special thanks once again to Sean Ray for commissioning thus podcast for the 1982 John Carpenter sci-fi/horror classic, The Thing. The location, sense of isolation and paranoia, and atmosphere of dread this film is able to generate is incredible. Kurt Russel is iconic in his role as everyman bad*ss. And the gruesome, disturbing practical effects work still effectively sells the horrific alien acti...

A.Ron and Jim check out another funky episode of HBO’s The Deuce. Lori and Eileen’s careers heat up as the pimps are left out in the cold! Vincent gets nostalgic with Abby, while Paul and Bobby do their best to fight off rivals to their trades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This edition is intended to be the definitive version. The interesting thing is, Jim and I have always been a bit “meh” on the classic Blade Runner experience. Sure, we always saw how influential it is, and could understand why it was highly regarded “for it’s day”. We both felt like we saw the film with fresh eyes on this cut. There are problems with world building and pacing here and there, but...

We’re not upset with the people who like Castle Rock, as it’s charms are evident; it looks great, boasts an incredibly talented cast, and cribs from very highly regarded plots and material by genius of horror Steven King. Ultimately a show either grabs you or it doesn’t, and we flat out slipped through Castle Rock’s creepy grasp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and A.Ron are happy to be back into the swinging 70’s with HBO’s The Deuce, with it’s return episode, “Our Raison D’être”. This time and setting are so colorful, fun, and alive that it’s easy to forget the layer of decay and menace that lurks just beneath each scene. Whether it’s pimps losing their grip on the game or mobsters that have grown fat and lazy from politicians looking the other way...

Jim and A.Ron put on their brown pants tonight to go out and see The Nun, the latest installment in The Conjuring universe, but only one of us needed to. The film’s getting mixed reviews; and Jim worries that co-writer James Wan’s bag of tricks are getting played out and the movie suffers from inconsistent internal logic. Perhaps I’m the biggest wuss alive, but the movie got my hair standing up on...

We’re back to finish up (?) our coverage of HBO’s Sharp Objects, and discuss our thoughts on Hulu’s Castle Rock through S01E08 (00:26:04). Next week we’ll be back to start our coverage of the second season of HBO’s The Deuce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and I had high hopes for The Little Stranger, thinking it would be an ultra atmospheric mash up of The Witch with Downton Abbey. Instead, we got a commentary on upper class angst during the 1940’s as their fortunes crumbled alongside their estates masquerading as a dull, drab little ghost story. At no point does the film ever manage to generate anything but mild disquiet and malaise. Which is...

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of watching Sharp Objects these past few months. We found the finale to be of a piece with the whole. Maybe there weren’t satisfying answers to every single element or question raised by the series, but isn’t that the way life goes? We feel we got enough through Camille’s point of view to understand what motivated Adora and Amma, and liked that the show left so...

Today we discuss the penultimate episode of HBO’s Sharp Objects, “Falling”, as well as our thoughts on the first six episodes of Hulu’s Castle Rock. Sharp was an especially wild hour, chock full of stomach churning child abuse and problematic sex scenes between damaged and self-destructive people, before promising a truly epic conclusion from the setup of a five way collision between Camille, Amma...

Brian Strader is back to, as he says, “play ‘TV Show Dumpster Fire’ roulette.” Unfortunately we think he may have lost by betting on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. We were suitably impressed with the detail of the animations, certain aspects of world building, and the themes here and there. Unfortunately, other aspects of the world building struck us as silly, the translations on the ver...

We’re back to talk HBO’s Sharp Objects and a preliminary spoiler-free discussion of Hulu’s spooky Castle Rock! Here are some time stamps to help you navigate the podcast… 00:00:52 – Castle Rock 00:12:18 – Sharp Objects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and A.Ron talk about another hard to watch but impossible to turn away from episode of HBO’s Sharp Objects, “Closer”. The town of Wind Gap celebrates what could charitably be called a a dark and regrettable moment from their past history, while Adora tortures her daughter Camille in ways that would make Ramsay Bolton blush. Not much is advanced in terms of the central murder mystery, but we ge...

Jim and A.Ron continue to focus on HBO’s Sharp Objects, with a deep dive on the fourth episode, “Ripe”. Of course, Adora is just The Worst, but we see hints that the crazy awfulness of her family didn’t start with her. Who knows how many generations of Wind Gap women have been caught in this cycle of rage and shame? Also, Camille and Willis get handsy, suspicion swirls around John Keane and Bob Na...

The plot around the bonkers stunt work is a bit thin, but the stunts themselves fully justify the movie. You can see ever dollar spent and bone broken literally up there on the screen, but it also must be said that these stunts are clinging desperately to the line from believable to unbelievable. And half the time they careen over that line and land in Fast & Furious territory. Unless they find an...

This week’s episode of Sharp Objects, “Fix”, is rough to watch. Filled with painful encounters with family, self-harm, and suicide, it is bleak and yet remains engaging and thoughtful as the camera captures the horrific events without artifice or judgment. Amma appears far more at risk and overtly dangerous than we first anticipated, Adora is an absolute monster, and Camille is clearly in over her...

We’re back for more discussion of HBO’s miniseries, Sharp Objects, discussing the second episode, “Dirt”. But it turns out we can’t resist the siren call of discussing “all of television” as we do a deeper dive than is truly necessary on the 2018 Emmy nominations, as well as talk about the Stranger Things season 3 teaser that just dropped. We just can’t help ourselves! 00:00:00 – 2018 Emmy nominat...

Jim and A.Ron are back with another first run Bald Move, this time taking in The Rock’s latest family friendly action flick, “Skyscraper”. Die Hard + Towering Inferno = a pretty damn engaging and entertaining action film, smarter than most, and with plenty of heart courtesy Dwayne Johnson’s charisma and chemistry with co-star (and fellow badass) Neve Campbell. You’re going to be able to predict mo...

Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects features Amy Addams as a journalist who returns to the small town she grew up in to investigate a series of killings. Giving us strong True Detective vibes, the mystery is intriguing and the characters are vivid and well developed just one episode in. We’ll be back with weekly coverage of Sharp Objects, if you’d like to join the conversation, use...

Cecily and A.Ron are back to discuss Incredibles 2. Brad Bird returns to direct the original cast and some fun new cameos. If you liked Incredibles, this is more of it in every way. More supers, bigger action scenes, more Mr. Incredible angst, super teenage dating, and the best animal control scene in movie history. The script is literally the same script from the first, but the plot is really sec...

Jim and A.Ron have seen AMC’s The Terror, the epic horror/historical drama set in the mid-nineteenth century that tries to answer the question of what went wrong during the doomed Franklin expedition to the arctic circle. These intrepid men were looking for a path through the sea ice that would open up speedier (and more profitable) trade to the new world and eastern markets, but instead they find...

We’ve seen Solo: A Star Wars Story and… really liked it! Maybe it was low expectations, maybe it’s just impossible to hate on Han, Chewie, and Lando dashing around the galaxy doing derring-do (although…), all we know is that we found ourselves grinning like idiots throughout huge chunks of this movie. Maybe you will too? It’s hard to tell, I feel like I used to know what a Star Wars fan would like...

Bald Move TV is back! Jim and A.Ron discuss the fifth season of HBO’s Silicon Valley before considering the brilliant first season of Barry, starring Bill Hader as a hitman trying to turn actor. It probably goes without saying, but massive spoilers for both shows in this episode. If you’d like to skip around, here are timecodes for the discussion… Silicon Valley – 00:00:33 Barry – 00:19:10 Learn m...

We have seen Deadpool 2!  If you saw Deadpool, and liked it, well, here is more of it. It is arguably even better, or at any rate, just as good. We loved Deadpool, and had an even better time with 2. There are more jokes, more over the top action, better cameos, and truly shocking and original things put on screen that you’re just not going to see in other franchises, all done in a very brisk, sli...